to networking with other real estate professionals, interacting with potential buyers in a quick and knowledgeable way, and taking care of home showings. As a side note, remember that it’s okay to research multiple agents and get second opinions if you’re just not sure about something the first agent told you.
WHY MARKETING IS A MUST
Now, there might be one reason or many that your home isn’t selling. A good agent can help you step back and re-evaluate, then come up with a plan for moving forward. Obviously, that plan needs to include a solid marketing strategy, but before we get into that, let’s look at a simple object many people already have in their homes: the mousetrap. You know what it looks like. The piece of wood, the metal bar, the trigger. But over 4,400 people were so sure they could improve on it that they filed patents with the U.S. Patent Office. The end result? In spite of their best efforts, the design most frequently sold in stores today is still the original, patented in 1894. Why? One big reason is that those inventors forgot they had to sell their mousetraps; you can’t just put a mousetrap out into the world and expect massive amounts of buyers to go out and purchase them. On the flip side, one company that did understand the importance of marketing (and targeted marketing at that) is Coca-Cola. They started expanding their business in the 1880s, as did RC Cola (which was started by an ex-Coca-Cola customer), Dr. Pepper, and a slew of other companies. Even into the early 1900s, there weren’t really any clear leaders in the soft drink business. That all changed by 1920, when Coca-Cola took a clear lead. They did it in a very specific way: like the other soft drink companies, Coke salesmen traveled all over the country—but unlike their
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